DEEPER KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST - PART 4

MONDAY 15 JANUARY 2024

Reference: Philippians 3:10-11 New King James Version (NKJV)

"I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.…"

The next versified sequence based on the four segments that make up our referenced Scripture is:

"Being conformed to Him in His death..."

Beloved, the Gospel is good news. In other words, think of the result of Christ's sufferings and death and deliberately focus on it. Why? Johannine literature attributed to John the Evangelist reads, "We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true. And we are in Him who is true by being in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life" (1 John 5:20 NLT).

Jesus came to grant us a purposive aptitude for understanding the true and living God. Having received Him as Lord, we are now in God who is true - by being in His Son Jesus Christ. So God sent His Son to manifest eternal life in its spirited form, so as to show that He alone is the true God.

Hear me, it would be a great privilege to do yourself a favour by focusing on being conformed to Him in His life of glory, and enjoy eternal life continually. Remember that being conformed to Him in His death was Paul's personal prayer point. But honestly, I mind his lexicon! There are other ways to communicate what Paul meant in that Scripture without focusing on the death language, because the tongue has the power to bring death or life, accompanied by consequences (Proverbs 18:21 NIV/NLT).

Jesus Himself said, "...I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of" (John 10:10 MSG). So what did Paul mean when he desired to be conformed to Him in His death? He presented the viewpoint of dying to worldly pleasures and evil desires so as to become more like Christ. Got it?

However this is not exactly the same thought he expressed in 1st Corinthians 15:30-33 which reads: "And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour? I face death every day—yes, just as surely as I boast about you in Christ Jesus our Lord. If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus with no more than human hopes, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised..." (NIV). Here you'd notice that he was talking about physical dangers that could've led to death and most of his outcomes was a direct result of his manner of deadly expressions in his vocabulary, as well as the definition of the purpose of his high calling.

Here is how I want you to gain the accurate understanding of Paul's experience based on His sufferings: In 2nd Corinthians 4:11-12, he noted: "For we who are alive are always consigned to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our mortal body. So we live in the face of death, but this has resulted in eternal life for you" (NIV), meaning that in the natural realm, he was often delivered unto death, while the saints were positioned to reap the fruit of His sufferings. Beloved, this was Paul's personal experiences. As he laboured for the spread of the glorious gospel, he faced the struggle of death on a daily basis, not really dying daily to self and the world.

To that effect, the same Paul said in 2nd Timothy 2:10, "So I am willing to endure anything if it will bring salvation and eternal glory in Christ Jesus to those God has chosen. Trustworthy is the saying: For if we have died together with Him, we will also live together with Him" (NLT). According to this versified statement, I still maintain that our focus should be on salvation benefits and eternal glory in Christ Jesus, because we were crucified together with Him on the cross, and we have been raised together with Him. Ephesians 2:6 (NIV) stated that God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, which implies that through His resurrection, He conquered spiritual death which has granted us access to eternal life in Him.

When you count yourself dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus, you will not entertain sinful reign in your mortal body, meaning that you'll refuse to obey its evil desires by living to please God. That also implies - you live your life faithfully in Christ and maintain the right confessions, which can equally replace the language of death working in apostle Paul. Stay tuned for part 5. Shalom!

Scripture Reading - 1 Corinthians 15:49; Romans 8:29; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Romans 12:2.

Exuberant Declaration:

The life of God is up and running within me, and I'm being conformed to the image of Christ from glory to glory as I daily live and function in accordance with the Word. Blessed be God!